By: Dylan Francis, Follow South Jersey Community Journalist
For a long time, I avoided telling my story. Not because I was ashamed, but because I wasn’t sure I could handle the emotional toll of reliving my most traumatic memories. I knew that putting it all into words meant reopening wounds that never fully healed.
But now, as I turn 22 years old, I feel the pull to do what I’ve put off for years. There’s something about this milestone that calls me to look back at the pain, the purpose, and the preservation of my life. It feels like the right time to finally step out of the shadows of silence and into the light of testimony.
This isn’t a story of self-pity. I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. If anything, I want this to be a story of hope, a reminder that Yahweh can bring meaning out of suffering.
I came into the world on a summer evening in July, far earlier than expected. I was the first of three premature babies, born at just 24 weeks. Our birth was filled with uncertainty, fear, and the quiet hope that somehow we’d survive. The odds were not in our favor.
We battled our little hearts out, but not all of us came home.
I suddenly felt overwhelmed by the thought: I’m wasting this second chance.
Just 45 days after our birth, my brother Donovan passed away. The cause was necrotizing enterocolitis, or NEC, a disease I wouldn’t understand until much later. It was devastating.
At that time, I was too young to comprehend what had happened. But as I got older and learned the truth, grief took a different shape. It was a kind of sadness that hovered over my childhood, not always spoken, but always there.
His absence was felt every time my family would introduce us to other people. They would say that we were triplets, which almost immediately followed up with the question, “Where is the third one?” After that question, there would be a subtle silence, then we would say that he had passed away. Even as I write this now, I still feel the ache of a bond broken before it ever had a chance to grow.
Looking at that moment, I thought, “Why did I survive and not Donovan?” He had been the healthiest of the three of us before his passing, and I had a laundry list of issues I dealt with as an infant. It was very confusing to me until I realized that Yahweh had a great plan for me and my sister. He used this traumatic experience to shape us into the people that He would want us to become.
Growing up, I was different. That difference showed up in scars, surgeries, and silence. I had a tracheostomy tube in my throat, a G-tube in my stomach, and paralyzed vocal cords that left my voice raspy and soft. By the time I was a teenager, I had undergone 53 surgeries.
The hardest battles I faced weren’t only in the physical sense; it was emotional. I couldn’t relate to most people around me. Not even my sister, who had her own journey, but not the same complications I faced.
Sometimes, I felt invisible. Sometimes, I felt like an anomaly. No one knew what it felt like to carry both the gift of survival and the weight of it. In my mind, I wasn’t just alive, I was expected to make something extraordinary out of my life. That expectation became a silent pressure I carried everywhere.
People often called me a miracle. And in many ways, I was. But what they didn’t see was the pressure that label carried. When you’re the child who “wasn’t supposed to make it,” every moment starts to feel like it has to count. Like you have to prove you were worth saving.
There were days when I felt like I was failing that unspoken expectation. I wasn’t always joyful. I wasn’t always confident. But deep inside, I felt the weight of what Yahweh had done to bring me here, and the fear that I wasn’t doing enough with it.
That kind of burden is hard to explain. It’s not just gratitude, it’s survival guilt, impostor syndrome, and spiritual fatigue. I didn’t just want to be normal; I wanted to be worthy of the second chance I was given.
Everything changed last winter during a youth camp.
It wasn’t a loud, dramatic moment. It was quiet, like Yahweh whispering into a part of me I had kept shut off. During a worship session, as music filled the room, I suddenly felt overwhelmed by the thought: I’m wasting this second chance.
In that moment, I realized that surviving wasn’t the whole story. I had been saved for a reason, not just spared by chance. Yahweh wasn’t just calling me to live. He was calling me to live with purpose.
That camp didn’t erase my scars or my questions. But it reframed them. They were no longer signs of weakness; they were evidence of survival, of grace, of a divine plan still unfolding.
Since that moment, I’ve decided to stop hiding behind my fear and pain. I’ve started walking with purpose, not because I have all the answers, but because I’ve seen what Yahweh can do with broken things.
I still carry my scars. I still have hard days. But I no longer see myself as a burden or a medical case. I see myself as someone chosen to live, someone called to reflect Yahweh’s glory even in the quietest, hardest places.
I don’t know what the future holds. But I know I’m not wasting this life. I want to speak for those who didn’t survive. I want to inspire those who feel like they don’t belong. I want to make every breath matter.
Donovan’s life may have only lasted 45 days, but it changed mine forever. His story didn’t end in that hospital. It lives on through me and my family.
My life was never guaranteed, but it was always guided. Yahweh’s hand has been on me from the beginning, through every surgery, every scar, every silent prayer. He turned pain into purpose, loss into love, and survival into testimony.
I am living proof that the smallest beginnings can grow into the strongest stories. And for that, I will never stop giving thanks. Thank you Yahweh, for everything you have done and will continue to do in my life.
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